9308-3953

accumulated effects of the laudanum itself, of course. But she handled those quite well. Had no
noteworthy issues of alertness or balance that I could tell.”
“You are quite frank about prescribing a drug which had no medical benefit.”
“I shouldn’t say it had no benefit. Have you ever witnessed opiate withdrawal, young
man? It is not a pretty thing, even for the young and strong, and there was little reason to put a seventy
year old woman through the process. She was not the worst I have seen. Not even close.”
“Did she go though her medication especially quickly? Require more bottles than would
seem likely?”
Tufts frowned in the flickering candlelight. “Are you asking if her dependence was
worsening?”
“No, I am asking if you think it was possible that someone else was sharing her
prescription.”
“Ah,” the doctor said. “Well...perhaps, and, if so I imagine his pain was real enough.
Traumatic injuries such as those sustained in war can continue to torment a patient through the years,
as I suspect you know. And everything seems to hurt a little more as one ages, as I suspect you do not
know.”
“Weaver has a war wound?”
The doctor frowned. “Not that I’m aware. I was speaking of that Indian fellow who
was Rose’s shadow. Followed her all the way into death, as it turns out. Pulkit Sang.”
“Ah,” said Tom, realization dawning at last. “So she procured laudanum for her loyal
servant as well as herself.”
The doctor’s frown deepened. “’Procured’ is a rather odd term, my lad, so watch what
you are implying. I daresay many white families in Bombay provide medication for members of their
household staff. The natives have no access to doctors, at least not real ones. They have those
swamis who chant and offer up their foul-smelling herbs. My understanding is that Sang had been in
Rose’s service for many years. That he had been wounded, in fact, while attending her first husband
on one of his campaigns. There is no crime in her impulse to allay the man’s suffering.”
Tom shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Sir. Now that I better grasp the situation I
also see nothing odd in the fact that Rose and Sang might share her laudanum. My original question
was based on the idea that her current husband might also have shared it.”
“Anthony Weaver? Entirely possible.”
“And this does not concern you? That a completely healthy person might also have
fallen under the spell of this – what did you call it? – this botanical cornucopia?”
The doctor snorted. “There is no such thing as a seventy year old person who has spent
the majority of his life living in India who is also completely healthy. The climate takes its toll, my
young Mr. Bainbridge, in more ways than you and I have time to discuss. Anthony Weaver has had a
cough for as long as I’ve known him. He has been treated for asthma and pleurisy and for a time I
suspected pneumonia. But the man has stumbled on, as have his lungs, so that I can only conclude that
he is being taken by a disease that moves slowly, methodically, and ultimately successfully.”
Tom winced. “Cancer?”
The doctor nodded. “My guess is that he will be dead within the year.”
***
The Bombay Jail
10:20 AM